Abrupt Methane Release 2011-2013

The result of the following timeline is the formation of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC). See: http://www.unep.org/ccac/

Timeline:

The following tracks the case for a major Arctic Methane release and consequent US and global action to counter the event and its impact on global climate change.

The most recent information is at the bottom.

August 18-19, 2011:

The HIPPO polar research flights detected heightened levels
of methane gas throughout the Arctic Ocean. Wofsy, the lead investigator
commented:

"Scientists were surprised to find strong evidence that
ocean surfaces laid bare by melting ice are emitting methane at a
"significant" rate likely to have "global impact," Wofsy
said.

"It confirms a concern that’s been raised about the
removal of ice from the arctic." Wofsy said.

"It does look to be significant, and that’s a new
result there."

The process by which the open ocean surface is emitting
methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is uncertain, Wofsy
said, adding that it likely is not from frozen masses of methane known to be in
deep oceans, nor from methane being exhaled from newly thawed tundra...."

"It had not been forecast that we would see evidence of
methane coming from the deep ocean regions," Wofsy said. "Maybe we
should’ve known, but that was a surprise." Source: Global warming effect
seen in pole-to-pole data-gathering flights 09/07/11

Sept 2, 2011:

The Russian ship Academic Lavrentiev sailed
from Vladivostock on an unexpected mission to observe methane emission in the
ESAS. Semelitov, the expedition leader said:

"This expedition was organized on a short notice by the
Russian Fund of Fundamental Research and the U.S. National Science Foundation
following the discovery of a dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas
from the seabed in the eastern part of the Arctic, said Professor Igor Semiletov,
the head of the expedition.

....The 45-day expedition will focus on the sea shelf of the
Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea and the Russian part of the Chukotsk Sea,
where 90% of underwater permafrost is located.

"We assume that the leakage of methane results from the
degradation of underwater permafrost...A massive release of such a powerful
greenhouse gas may accelerate global warming," Semiletov said. Source: RIA
Novosti, September 2, 2011.

September 26, 2011:

Initial expedition report:

VLADIVOSTOK, September 26, 2011 (Itar-Tass) — A Russo-US
expedition which visited
the eastern sector of the Arctic seas found powerful methane emissions in the
northern
sector of the Laptev and Bering seas, expedition Chief Igor Semiletov, who
represents the Far Eastern Institute of Ocean studies under the Russian Academy
of Sciences and University of Alaska Fairbanks, told Itar-Tass by telephone
from board the Akdemik Lavrentyev research ship.

"Methane torches" have been running up from the
depth of the ocean with methane
emitted into the air, Semiletov said. Source: Itar Tass.

Sept 28, 2011:

Further details from the expedition:

"The participants of an international expedition have
fixed hundreds of torches-fountains of outgoing gas. This only a small part of
what is hidden in permafrost, scientists say. On the bottom of the ocean
methane is stored in hydrates - solid units, which began to fail at higher
temperature emitting gas." Source: Moscow Times.

October 18, 2011:

Further details on the methane release:

"According to Semiletov, the scientists detected the
most powerful methane discharges in the north of the Laptev Sea. Although
earlier the scientists detected only several eruptions of gas, this time they
found thousands of them using state-of-the-art equipment." Source: RIA
Novosti

December 13, 2011:

AGU presentation by Semelitov and
Shakhova. Semelitov comments in the press:

"In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor
Semiletov, of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that
he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released
from beneath the Arctic seabed.

"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but
they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've
found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000
metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said.

"I was most impressed by the sheer scale and high
density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but
over a wider area there should be thousands of them."

"In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles,
we have counted more than 100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling
through the water column and injected directly into the atmosphere from the
seabed," Dr Semiletov said. "We carried out checks at about 115
stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale – I think
on a scale not seen before. Some plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the
emissions went directly into the atmosphere – the concentration was a hundred
times higher than normal."

The Giovanni/AIRS runs for September 2011 to February 2012
reveal unprecedented sustained methane release in the upper Arctic and Siberian
atmosphere.

Despite all the press comments debating the methane release,
its size and significance, what follows in US foreign policy changes in regard
to climate is telling:

February 15, 2012:

"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to
announce the initiative at the State Department on Thursday accompanied by
officials from Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Sweden and the United Nations
Environment Program.

If adopted globally, measures to reduce soot and methane
emissions could slow global warming by about a half a degree Celsius by 2030.

April, 2012:

The initiative membership expanded to 13 with
the enrollment of Colombia, Japan, Nigeria, Norway and the European Commission
along with the World Bank.

May 22, 2012:

All the G8 nations join the soot/methane
initiative:

"Over the weekend, the remaining members of the G8 who
are not yet part of the Coalition-Germany, France, Italy, Russia and the United
Kingdom - agreed to join on and expressed their support for its aims and
initiatives via the Camp David Declaration. The Declaration states:

"We, the Leaders of the Group of Eight, met at Camp
David on May 18 and 19, 2012 to address major global economic and political
challenges ... Recognizing the impact of short-lived climate pollutants on
near-term climate change, agricultural productivity, and human health, we
support, as a means of promoting increased ambition and complementary to other
CO2 and GHG emission reduction efforts, comprehensive actions to reduce these
pollutants, which, according to UNEP and others, account for over thirty
percent of near-term global warming as well as 2 million premature deaths a
year. Therefore, we agree to join the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce
Short-lived Climate Pollutants." Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201205221100.html

June 2, 2012:

Hilliary Clinton announces Norway's joining
the coalition. In her Q&A she says,

"SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think it is always
important to have firsthand experience, if possible. I’ve had the opportunity
to visit Svalbard when I was a United States senator. Last year, the Arctic
Council met in Nuuk, Greenland. And then of course, today, we were able to go
out on a research vessel and hear from experts about what is happening in the
Arctic, and in fact, that many of the predications about warming in the Arctic
are being surpassed by the actual data. That was a – not necessarily a
surprising but sobering fact to be told."

July 24, 2012:

Seven more nations join the anti-soot/methane
coalition:

"At a meeting in Paris, the Clean Air and Climate
Coalition, launched by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in February, said
Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Jordan were its latest
members. They joined the United States, Bangladesh, Canada, Colombia, the
European Commission, Ghana, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Sweden, the World
Bank, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Stockholm Environment Institute
-- bringing to 21 the number of members of the voluntary coalition.

"The idea is to come together around a network to scale up actions that
could reduce these short-lived pollutants in the near term," United States
deputy special envoy for climate change Jonathan Pershing told journalists.

"If we are able to do this we can really buy time in the context of the
global problem to combat climate change -- time that we need desperately as the
rate of emissions continue to rise globally."

A group of scientists from Russia, Japan and South Korea will depart on Tuesday from Vladivostok to the Sea of Okhotsk in search of methane deposits, head of the expedition Anatoly Obzhirov said.

“The group of Russian scientists will depart on board the Academician Lavrentyev research ship,” Obzhirov said. “They will be joined later by eight Japanese and two S. Korean experts in the port of Korsakov on the Island of Sakhalin.”

The expedition will explore the fields of underwater permafrost, which traps methane, and study methane emissions in the water and the atmosphere.

"9/3/12 In the Okhotsk and Japan Seas discovery of large deposits of gas hydrates . Scientists from the international expedition discovered two new deposits of gas hydrates in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan, and found the highest in the world of underwater stream of bubbles of methane, told the expedition leader, head of the department of Geology and Geophysics of the Pacific Oceanological Institute, Far Eastern Branch (POI), RAS, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Anatoly Obzhirov.

"The whole province of gas hydrates found in Tatar Strait 43 are found immediately release methane. Prior to that, in these areas the search for oil and gas were just offshore. Our discovery - a possible indicator of oil and gas deposits on the side of the strait. Next year, we plan to examine in detail and this area, "- said Obzhirov.

Russian scientists have discovered spots in the Arctic Ocean where mass emissions of methane can be observed.

According to the press-service of the expedition aboard The Viktor Buinitsky research vessel, the diameter of some of the ‘methane fields’ found in the northern part of the Laptev Sea exceeds 1 kilometre.

Over 200 areas of mass emission of methane can be observed in the Arctic Ocean discovered recently by the Russian expedition onboard Viktor Buinitsky research vessel. As the Arctic regions containing methane get wormer more of this greenhouse gas is released into atmosphere meaning higher temperatures. Scientists worry that this increased warming will result in methane being released more rapidly making it into a snowball effect which will rapidly increase the global climate change.

Russian scientists have discovered more than 200 sources of methane emissions in the Arctic, particularly in the north of the Laptev Sea. Two of the methane fields exceed 1 kilometer in diameter, said Igor Semiletov, expedition head aboard the Viktor Buinitsky research vessel. Methane emissions in the Arctic have been observed before and are explained by bacterial activity. Head of the ecology department at Moscow State University, Dmitry Zamolodchikov, spoke about the possible consequences in an exclusive interview with the Voice of Russia.

I would suggest there is a direct link between what HIPPO, the Russian expedition findings on methane release, and the US intiative on methane.

Unfortunately, there may also be a link with the speech by Todd Stern, US Special Envoy for Climate Change, at the August 2, 2012 commencement at Dartmouth College about the US rejecting the generally understood 2C cap on global temperature change linked to warming mitigation goals.